With the constantly improving quality of color photocopies and printings and in an attempt to protect security documents, in particular long-lived security documents, e.g. banknotes, requiring high resistance against counterfeiting or illegal reproduction, it has been the conventional practice to incorporate various security means in these documents. In particular, the security means are typically chosen from different technology fields, manufactured by different suppliers, and embodied in different constituting parts of the security document. To break the security document, the counterfeiter would need to obtain all of the implied materials and to get access to all of the required processing technology, which is a hardly achievable task. Typical examples of security means include security threads, windows, fibers, planchettes, foils, decals, holograms, watermarks, security inks comprising optically variable pigments, magnetic or magnetizable pigments, interference-coated particles, thermochromic pigments, photochromic pigments, luminescent, infrared-absorbing, ultraviolet-absorbing compounds.
Some of the ill-effects that counterfeit money has on society include a decrease of the value of real money; an increase in prices (inflation) due to more money getting circulated in the economy—an unauthorized artificial increase in the money supply; a decrease in the acceptability of paper money (payees may demand electronic transfers of real money or payment in another currency (or even payment in a precious metal such as gold)); and losses, when traders are not reimbursed for counterfeit money detected by banks, even if it is confiscated. Furthermore, a major ill-effect resides in reduction in trust of the currency and the government.
Accordingly, a need exists for a banknote with improved security features.